My Thoughts Lately

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted something.  The reason why is because I have been doing a lot lately, which got me thinking.  I have been busy/hard working for the past 8 years. I feel like for 8 years I never did anything but worked, and studied, etc. You see, the first 4 years I was in college, and when you are in college you only do 3 things:  study, work to earn money, and hang out with roommates/boys.  Those are your 3 goals and nothing else really matters because those 3 things are all you have time for. Even in the summers I felt busy.  The summers were my time to work extra, to make extra money to pay for college, and then of course hand out with roomies/meet boys.

When I finally met my boy, the next 4 years happened.  Five days after Clint and I were married I began my career as a teacher, and thus proceeded the working hard/providing for our family for 4 years.  Because that's exactly what I did.  I was the bread winner for our first 4 years of marriage, and I put Clint through school.  And I know people say this all the time, but I'm just backing it up.  Teaching is hard!  It is very mind draining - you always have to be on your game.  At the end of the day I felt like my brain was FRIED from constantly "being on my toes" and thinking of creative ways to teach, or get kids to behave, or explain things differently so all could understand, etc.  So when I got home, I wanted to do absolutely nothing except relax, watch TV, etc.  When I taught I didn't even want to read a book for pleasure because I felt like a was constantly reading....other things than pleasure reading.  And when I had summers off, again, I didn't want to do anything except catch up on sleep, watch TV, and catch up on the exercise I didn't have time for during the teaching year - a very all around draining job.

If you would of asked me what I liked to do when I was teaching, I would have said: read (sometimes), snowboard, hang out with my husband, and scrapbook.

But now that I am a stay at home mom, I have time to do all those things I never got to do the past 8 years, and those things are called........................HOBBIES!  I actually have hobbies now besides the above mentioned.  I still like to scrapbook, and read.  But I have time, during Jonas's naps and after he goes to bed, to do the things (hobbies) that I could never do before.

And these are a few of the new hobbies that I have begun loving since I've been a stay at home mom:

Sewing:  These are the most recent pages I've finished for Jonas's quiet book.  I think they all turned out really great.

Plus, I get to complete these pages with my mom,  She'll try to come down once a month, and I'll try to go up once month to hang out and we work on the quiet book together.  Plus, she gets to spend time with her favorite grandson (Jonas is her only grandson, ha ha!)







Oh, and I finally got on the whole "Pinterest" train.  I love Pinterest.  I never understood it before, till now, and I love it!  Tons of fun sewing ideas on Pinterest that I want to do. I'll add that to my list.


My next favorite hobby is:  Cooking/Baking!

Clint gave me a "500 Cupcakes" book for our 4 year anniversary, and I've tried a couple of recipes out of it.  These are my favorite cupcakes that I've made so far.  They have a chocolate glaze for the frosting, and everything is made of scratch.  So yummy!


I've also tried a ton of new chicken recipes this week.  Lemon Chicken, not as good as the picture made it look, garlic brown sugar chicken, pretty good, and I'm making teriyaki crockpot chicken for dinner today. It's so fun to try new recipes and actually have time to cook.  I never had time to make dinner before - we always had quick easy meals when I got home so I could just relax.  I'm going to try making bread next.  How fun!

And then of course my other hobby, which has always been my hobby:  hanging out with family.

 We got to go to the temple open house.  Beautiful temple!  I can't wait to go there when we're visiting my family next.

And then there is hanging out with Jonas.  I love being with my little man.  And so far, these past 4 months have been great with Jonas!  I love being his mom, and teaching him things, and watching him learn and grow, and explore new things.

I would say we spend atleast 2-4 hours outside every day, and we have fun!  He loves bugs, and playing with tennis balls, footballs, any type, you name it.  Although he likes to throw the balls in the street so I have to go fetch them, the little stinker.

For example, yesterday Jonas was having a rough day, but I put cornstarch and water together and we had a blast playing in it.  He LOVED it! Squishing it in his fingers, and chatting my ear off about it all.  It was so fun!  I would never replace that moment to get out of the house or be back at work.  I love being a stay at home mom.

Yes, there are times when he drives me nuts, like when he won't take his naps, but it doesn't matter.  I love being with him, and I'm still enjoying it.  I had people always say to me that I was eventually going to, not really hate, but I can't think of a better word, maybe get sick of being home all the time.  When Clint comes home and he asks if I want to get out, I don't really want to.  I just love being home, and I'm pretty sure that will never change.  I had my time away from the house for 4 years, and now I'm in it.  So maybe in 4 years, when I've caught up to everyone else who has been a stay at home mom, I'll be sick of it.  But I'm enjoying it now, and I'm going to keep it that way.